SEANF Paper on Migrant Workers
inexpensive, and rapid procedures at their overseas Embassies and Consulates
which accept birth registration documents of the receiving state (showing the
child as being born from a migrant worker who is a citizen of the sending state)
as the necessary evidence to verify nationality of a child. Those Embassies or
Consulates should be authorized to issue official documentation to extend
citizenship to the migrant child.
32.
Article 28 of the CRC 20 , sets out that labour receiving governments shall provide
access to free education for the children of migrant workers at government
schools. Receiving states which have acceded to CRC but asserts their sovereign
right to hold reservations against the said Article should accept that education
for the children of migrant workers is to be the obligation of the employer and
should be stated in the contract of employment.
J.
Right to marriage, family life
33.
The SEANF observes that Article 23 of the ICCPR sets out an essential truth by
declaring “the family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society”
and the right of men and women to marry shall be recognized. The SEANF
further views that CEDAW Article 16 lays out a requirement that “State Parties
shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women
in all matters relating to marriage and family relations...” including the “…right
to enter into marriage.” The Universal Declaration on Human Rights also adds
in Article 16 that “Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to
race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.” The
SEANF recommends that the regional ASEAN Instrument guarantee the right of
migrant workers to marry and formally register their marriage in the receiving
country.
20 Article 28 of the CRC requires that “States Parties recognize the right of the child to education,
and with a view to achieving this right progressively and on the basis of equal opportunity, they shall,
in particular: (a) Make primary education compulsory and available free to all; (b) Encourage the
development of different forms of secondary education…and…make them available and accessible
to every child.”
24